Nearly one year after first sharing the story of her miscarriages, NBC News senior national correspondent Kate Snow is debuting a series on the network that will explore “the realities of pregnancy loss,” from workplace leave to medical advances and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Snow, who has had two losses — one in 2010 and one in 2012 — will be covering several stories for the series, titled Miscarriage Matters, on both Weekend Nightly News and Today, in addition to sharing her own experience.
“Personally, it’s been really revealing for me. I feel like it was actually therapeutic for me to sit and talk about it with someone out loud and revisit those emotions,” Snow, 50, tells PEOPLE ahead of the series launch. “It stays with you.”
Snow says many women who have miscarriages develop post-traumatic stress disorder following the loss and she “probably would fall in that category,” adding that the painful emotions are “still there.”
Miscarriage is defined as the spontaneous loss of a pregnancy before the 20th week, according to Mayo Clinic. Around 10 to 20 percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage, but that number may actually be much higher because many women miscarry before even realizing they are pregnant.
Snow says that though miscarriage is “incredibly common,” it is “a subject that the world doesn’t acknowledge.” Being more open about pregnancy loss is one of the reasons she wanted to do the series — “I’m hoping it will shine a light on an issue that really doesn’t get talked about enough,” she explains.
“Maybe if we do all speak about it more it will help us and help our understanding,” Snow adds. “I believe strongly that we have to talk about all these difficult issues, or the stigmas will remain.”
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Snow first shared her story in April, detailing that after unexpectedly becoming pregnant with her third child, she had a miscarriage. Two years later, it happened again. She says she wanted to tell the story in the hopes that she “could help someone else.”
“Our little family is stronger for what we’ve been through. And for whatever reason — having a third child just wasn’t meant to be,” Snow wrote on Today.com. “It wasn’t easy to accept. But eventually, slowly, we adjusted. We learned to celebrate all we have and spent less time mourning what we’d lost.”
In the end, Snow says it’s important that she use her platform to help other women “see that they’re not alone.”
“I was helped by hearing other women’s stories when I went through it. So if I have a platform I’m going to use it to tell my story so that I can help others,” Snow explains. “I think [the series] will touch people and I hope it creates some kind of community for people.”
NBC News will launch the new series, Miscarriage Matters, starting Sunday on today.com/miscarriage. Snow will also have reports on Sunday’s Weekend Nightly News at 6:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. CT and on TODAY Monday.
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